Matters of Discord
by Designation
Summary: After surviving the Demon's attack, an angry and bitter Jessica joins the brothers' hunt. As she and Sam struggle with what's left of their relationship, Dean finds himself in his own trouble... of the more life threatening kind.
1. Prologue: Smoke and Flame

Welcome to my first SN fic. Actual introductory comments 'n' such to be included with Chapter 1 . . . 'Cause this part's kinda meant to be a teaser, not a 'Hey y'all, this is how everything is.' A lead-in, ya know? Don't worry, it's short and won't take up much of your time if you have precious little. Chap. 1 will be up tomorrow.

_

* * *

__What if . . ._

**Matters of Discord  
****by  
****Kel**

**Prologue** - Smoke and Flame

"Time to go, sweetheart." Her hot breath lingered in his ear, and for a moment he didn't recognize her voice through her seductive tone. Her blond hair tickled his neck as she leaned in further to wrap her arms around him possessively.

"Sweetheart?" The brunette sitting on the barstool next to him arched an oh-so-perfectly shaped eyebrow. She slowly extracted her hand from where it rested on his, next to the beer he'd barely touched.

Honestly? He'd been hoping to touch other things.

The brunette's eyes narrowed as she stared at Dean and the beautiful woman who clung to him. "You've got a girlfriend?" She seemed to stew over this fact for a moment, but before he could think of a response, she continued, "Your _girlfriend_ is in the bar with you, and you're flirting with some strange girl?"

"I wouldn't say –" _that you were strange – 'alluring' might be a better word. . . ._

"What can I say? I like to watch." The blonde grinned wickedly around her armful of Dean, who started at her words.

_Oh, she's possessed. Gotta be possessed – and what the hell?_

Dean didn't know if he should fear for his life or be thanking his lucky stars when the brunette, who hadn't even given _him _her name yet, responded with her own seductive smile, "Why watch? You're perfectly welcome to join in, hon."

The air returned to Dean's lungs when the blonde finally released her hold on him. "Maybe next time." Her tone had grown sharp and acerbic. "We've got somewhere to be." With that, she fastened her hand on his upper arm and dragged him off his barstool.

When they'd gotten outside, both of them jerked away from the contact.

Then she turned to him, finger pointing angrily in his face, looking like she was ready to kill him – and he couldn't help the thought that sprang unbidden to his mind. _The fire got to her after all – and it never left._

"If you _ever_ mention that little scene to Sam, I'm going to pump you full of rock salt from your own shotgun and then beat you over the head with it," she snapped. "Now come on. We've got a job to do."

For someone who didn't know what he and Sam did until four months ago, she was sure dedicated to the hunt, in a way he hadn't seen from _Sam _– even before these further messed up days in their already messed up lives.

She turned and stormed back in the direction of the motel. "Jess, wait –" He began to call out, but then gave up quickly and jogged to catch up.

**To be continued . . .**


	2. Chapter 1: Trio

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership to Supernatural or anything Supernatural-related, and make no profit from this work of fiction.

**Author's Note: **This story has been completely pre-written and updates should come every two days from now on. Of course, while I'm posting the first few chapters I may still be editing later ones. . . . Just for the sake of having everything the best I can get it. Hmm, other than that, all the introductory comments I have right now are to say that this is an AU fic, in which . . . well, you'll figure it out from reading. It's obvious. :P

**Chapter 1 - **Trio

It must have thought that because Stantonville, Pennsylvania, like so many other small towns, was surrounded by woods, it could get away with it.

Actually, it had dumb luck and bad research to thank this time.

Sam didn't know _what_ had saved their trio of beaten, bruised and bloodied selves. How they'd managed to survive the night continued to amaze him, as he winced his way through Dean's less-than-gentle ministerings. He tried futilely to relax on the room's old wooden chair.

"I swear to God, Sam – we're all probably just going to die of freakin' _rabies,_" Dean snarled, slapping the last piece of tape onto the gauze that encircled the nasty, ragged bite on Sam's forearm. "I mean really, does this," he gestured angrily to the arm, "look like raw steak to _you?_"

"No," he replied, more to appease his brother than out of any interest in the rant. He was tired, he was sore, and he really wanted to know where he'd gone wrong with the silver.

You melted it down, and you made bullets out of it. Then you shot the shape-shifter in the heart, and it died, because silver _killed_ shape-shifters. It did _not_ stop in the air in front of them and fall useless to the ground. It did _not_ make them spit foam in their rage, and tackle you to the ground, and it did _not _make them bite you harder in their demonic-coyote-on-steroids form.

That had been his experience, anyway.

Luckily, Dean had pistol-whipped it hard enough to make it let go before it tore the flesh right off him. Even now, blood seeped slowly from the gashes Dean had received in response, a little too close to his brother's neck for Sam's liking.

Once Jessica came out of the bathroom where she'd locked herself as soon as they got back to the motel room, she'd clean them up. Sam's right arm was a useless ball of pain, and he didn't see himself performing field med any time soon.

Speaking of Jessica, for someone who'd suffered only minor cuts and bruises, she had sure been in that bathroom a long time. Sam wondered, as he so often did, if she was alright.

Dean followed his gaze to the closed door and let out a partially muted sigh. He gave Sam a look he couldn't quite interpret, but to his credit said nothing. The subject of Sam's girlfriend – _ex-_girlfriend – remained a touchy one ever since her near death and consequent discovery of who her boyfriend really was.

Sam still shuddered to think of the event itself, and the haze which had overtaken him the moment he saw her pinned to the ceiling above him.

_Relief flooded his body the second it hit the covers. His past was meant to be in the _past_, and now he was done with it once more. He could go back to the real world, go back to Jessica, go back to feeling clean._

_For the briefest of moments, the drop that landed on his forehead felt like an extension of that thought – but it was warm, not cool and refreshing, and then a second drop hit him, and a third, and he knew something was wrong, because there was nothing cleansing about the feel of the liquid on his skin._

_He opened his eyes, and lay paralyzed a moment longer at the sight that greeted him._

_Jess, _his girlfriend_, lying on the ceiling, gravity reversed but for the blood that dripped from her stomach, her lips forming his name in a rasping whisper, her face pale, her eyes terrified –_

_This couldn't be happening, wasn't supposed to happen, couldn't be –_

_His only thoughts were of the wrongness of the situation and how it had to end now or it would take his sanity with him when it did, and he didn't even feel himself move when he shot unsteadily to his feet on the bed. He couldn't feel his fingertips, couldn't feel his hands as they reached up and grabbed her to pull her down, couldn't feel the heat of the flame as it licked out to singe his arms when he wrenched her away, couldn't feel her weight collapse on top of him. He could only feel his heart pounding in his chest._

_He heard a familiar voice shouting his name, barely loud enough to be distinguished from white noise as the crackling sounds of burning fought to drown it out._

Sam was wrenched from his memories by Jessica emerging from the bathroom, finally. She looked a little pale, her mouth set in a grim line, but other than that she seemed no worse for wear than she had before they'd left for the hunt. She crossed the room stiffly and told Dean to sit back so she could have a look at his wounds, all business.

"How're you holding up?" Sam asked, his voice a little shaky.

Jessica shot him a cold stare as she sat next to Dean on the bed, disinfectant in hand. "I'm fine, Sam," she bit off. "Not injured, remember?"

Sam somehow didn't think her tone of was one of gratefulness for when he'd thrown himself boldly in front of her to save her from the shape-shifter's attack.

_Stop treating me like I'm glass, Sam,_ she'd half-yelled at him last week. But how did she expect him to stand by and watch her get hurt – _again_ – when he could prevent it? Just because they weren't exactly together these days, just because he knew she felt like she didn't even know him anymore, it didn't mean he loved her any less. The fact that she didn't trust him very much now would not stop him from trying to be someone she could depend on.

He opened his mouth to respond, but off of a warning glare from Dean and the fact that he had no idea _what_ to say, he closed it again.

* * *

"You could try cutting him a little slack, you know." 

Jess kept her head down but lifted her eyes to look at Dean. She'd been swirling the same fry in her ketchup for the past several minutes, and her hand paused in its movement. "You think I should?" she asked in a civil, disinterested tone.

Dean chose not to respond. He wouldn't have said it if he didn't think it, would he?

"Funny. 'Cause I think you should mind your own business." She finally brought the fry to her mouth, putting it out of its misery and resuming a complete lack of eye contact.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and they were sitting in a small diner in the small town of Stantonville, not unlike the string of nameless diners they usually frequented.

The sun shone in through the window next to them, washing away colours with its brightness. Everything looked dull and faded, but for her hair which shone like gold, even through her bitterness. Which was exactly why Dean couldn't understand why Sam seemed to think she was so fragile, even though he didn't know how to put it in words and would never try.

"He's my brother." Which had always made it his business.

Dean took a cold french fry from her plate and popped it into his mouth, a peace offering of the sort that would only come from him.

He heard footsteps approaching their table and knew they were Sam's, so he slouched down in his seat. With Sam's trained eyes on the lookout, and Jess's, which were well on their way, he could relax. The tension of the past four months had him so tired.

**To be continued . . .**


	3. Chapter 2: Conflicting

Thanks to my reviewers so far - you guys make me so giddy:P

**Disclaimer:** I hereby disclaim anything I don't own.

**Chapter 2** - Conflicting

"Well, last I checked, shape-shifters did _not _come equipped with personal force fields," Dean supplied helpfully.

"Okay, so what does?" Jess asked. "Besides the borg, I mean." Dean raised an eyebrow in her direction. Was that a sense of humour? She hadn't lifted her eyes from the computer Sam sat in front of, or even changed her expression, so he really wasn't sure whether she even knew she'd made a joke.

A few years spent around his little brother could certainly infect lesser people than himself with boringness, and hell, she'd slept in the same bed with the guy, hadn't she? Poor girl.

They all sat in the library, where among the three of them, they tried to determine the difference between the thing they'd fought the night before and the run-of-the-mill, silver-fearing sort of shape-shifter that Dean had come to know and love to kill. They needed to know what the hell had happened to make this one so special and what would make it dead.

Dean caught Sam's wince as he moved his injured arm from the keyboard to the mouse. It had to be hurting pretty badly if such a simple movement aggravated it. Sam scrubbed his left hand over his eyelids. "This is getting us nowhere," he sighed. As if to confirm his thought, the computer froze again. "Dammit!"

Jess an exasperated roll of her eyes. "So, we need a new game plan."

Sam took advantage of the unplanned break to lean back and stretch a little. "Too bad _this_," he gestured to the computer and the rest of the library with his uninjured left arm, "was our way of finding one."

"Yeah, and now that _thing_ is going to kill again, and we have no idea how to stop it," Jess groused. "You're sure there's nothing in your father's little _encyclopedia_ –"

"No," Sam cut her off, looking mildly hurt. "I looked through the journal. There wasn't anything."

"Seeing as how he's probably more cryptic and _hides things_ better than you two, you might have missed something." She'd said 'you two,' but Dean knew that she'd really just meant Sam. Damn, the girl could be snarky when she wanted to be.

"We'll find something, guys," Dean cut in quickly, rising to his feet and ignoring the brief pull of his wounds at the movement. "Tell you what, Sam, why don't you keep looking for a bit, and me an' Jess'll go get us all a nice cup of coffee, huh?"

Before either of them could say what they thought of the new plan, Dean grabbed Jess firmly by the arm and began pulling her towards the exit.

When they burst into the open air, she yanked herself out of his grasp with a terse, "Let go!"

"What, you can drag me around but I can't return the favour?" Dean snapped back. "I tell ya, _sweetheart,_ you've got one hell of a chip on your shoulder."

Jess huffed at him, crossing her arms angrily in front of herself. "Well _excuse me_ if I have a bit of a problem dealing with this little demonic slum world you guys love so much! Ghosts, and skinwalkers, and _shape-shifters_, Dean? I mean, _really_, do you expect me to be all sunshine and lollipops about the whole thing?"

Off of the weird looks the two of them were drawing, yelling at each other on the library steps, Dean made to grab her arm to drag her along as he started walking down the street. She pulled away just as violently as before, but followed him anyway. "First of all, skinwalkers _are_ shape-shifters, and second of all, 'Demonic slum world'?" he hissed incredulously, making sure to keep his voice lowered. "This isn't exactly some alternate universe, just because _you_ finally noticed that there are some nasty things in the dark."

"Really?" Jess snorted sarcastically. "'Cause when Sam went to college like a _normal person_, it sure as hell seemed like it cut him right out of _your world._"

"_My_ world? Do you _really_ think this is easier for me – No. Do you think this is easier for _Sam_ than it is for you?"

Jess gave a bitter half-chuckle. "It wasn't exactly sprung on him after twenty-two years of thinking he knew something about his life."

Dean laughed back at her, and for a moment it could almost have seemed like something was funny. "Spare me the sob story, sweetheart. Don't you understand that he was _happy_ when he left? Now he's been sucked back in just as much as you have – because he can't _stand_ the thought of what that demon did to _you._"

"Oh, so this is all my fault now?"

He deflated a little, sighing in frustration and running a hand roughly through his hair. "I'm not saying that – but do you honestly think he'd be here looking for Dad, looking for the _demon_ if you weren't here? You made a choice to stay in this 'world,' Jess, and Sam probably would have stayed with you to protect you if you hadn't. He _needs_ to protect you, and if you're so scared of all this, I don't understand why you can't accept it."

"Maybe I need to protect _myself,_ Dean. I know you think what he wants is perfectly natural because you used to look out for him all the time when you were kids, but I can't live like that. I can't play the Little Sammy to his Big Brother Dean."

Dean stopped walking, and looked at her, making sure she caught the full effect of his next words. "So if you need to be so self-reliant, then why don't you stop with the bitter, broken, 'love me until I can stand to look at you again' act? You _are_ stronger than that, aren't you?"

Jess glared at him, looking caught between confusion, indignation and anger.

Dean held her gaze for another few moments, but it became apparent to him that she had nothing to say to that. "Hey, look at the time!" he said, glancing theatrically at his watch. "Sam must be missing his coffee by now. Guess I should look out for him and go get it like any 'Big Brother Dean' would, huh?" He walked away from her, continuing the last few feet into the coffee shop.

* * *

Jessica closed her eyes and took a deep breath before moving from the spot where he'd left her.

Her life used to be so much more simple.

* * *

She looked away from the laptop screen to glance out the window into the darkness that loomed around the dull light from the streetlight in the parking lot. Aside from the damp, sparkling pavement and the slight chrome twinkle of the Impala's rear, she could see nothing closer than the empty road.

Jessica sighed and rested her weary head in the palms of her hands, elbows braced on the rickety table in front of her. A few feet away, Dean and Sam lay sleeping on separate beds.

They'd been a little reluctant to let her take a waking shift to keep watch on her own, reasoning that if she were the only one watching, then if the demon tried to take her again, it could do so without any real interference.

She'd shut their protests down quickly, since despite the brothers' reluctance, all three of them knew how easily they'd wake if there was any trouble. Jess screaming or yelling at them wouldn't exactly make it more difficult.

Soon, she'd wake up Sam and they'd switch places, her sleeping in the bed he vacated until morning. Dean would take one of the two shifts the next night, and thus they each got a full night's sleep every third night – and shuffled beds like a deck of cards.

So maybe it wasn't the healthiest of sleep patterns – at least they could function, and while they weren't safe, they were certainly a bit safer.

She was using her extra hours of wakefulness to attempt some more research on their shape-shifter. Perhaps it was the library's less-than-extensive archives, or the less-than-stable computers they'd tried to access them with, but they'd gotten no further during the day. They'd hoped to find something in the town's own history to shed some light on the situation.

Who knew – maybe there _was_ nothing to find. Refusing to accept this, however, they'd decided to return to the broader spectrum provided by the internet.

Where she was also finding nothing. Silver bullets killed shape-shifters, and she'd seen no mention of any telekinetic abilities.

Jessica closed the laptop and rose from her chair – did any of them feel anything _other_ than frustration anymore? – then padded softly to the room's mini-fridge to grab a beer. She opened it and took a deep, satisfying drink, then held it to her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them again, she noticed her left hand rubbing absently at her stomach. Whenever she managed to forget the way the demon had sliced her open as she hung in its clutches, helpless to stop it, it seemed her body remembered for her. She stopped the motion forcefully and clenched the offending hand into a fist. Then she took another deep drink.

_Stop with the bitter and broken act,_ Dean's voice piped up in her head.

"Shut up," she whispered back. She didn't know Dean well enough for him to be the voice of her conscience, no matter how much sense his words might make to her.

_You probably know him and Sam better than most people ever do,_ she reminded herself – at least this time, it sounded like her. It was true, wasn't it? The words, 'I don't even know you anymore,' had been on the tip of her tongue around Sam for the past four months, but she'd have been lying if she'd ever said them.

She'd never known him, not really – not until he sat in tears next to her hospital bed and told her the sordid story of his life, how she'd wound up in it, and why she'd ended up lying there. She'd suspected that some things existed beyond her knowledge when a man-like figure had lifted his arm and she'd been dragged up the wall, but the full extent of the things she'd been missing had come as quite a shock.

For some reason though, she hadn't been surprised that of all people, her Sam had known about them. After all, he'd always seemed a little touched by darkness.

For all the gaping holes in her map of Sam, she_ had_ known that much about him.

Could she trust him, though? After all, he'd been taught to make a living out of lying, and who was to say that he wasn't hiding something more from her? She might never know if he was really being honest with her – but maybe she was thinking with a more cynical tone than she normally did.

The real question was, did she want to trust him?

If she could find a way to let him in a little, would their every moment together taste like it was tainted with smoke and blood?

A rustle somewhere around the beds had Jess on instant alert, poised and ready to lift her beer bottle as a weapon if necessary. She briefly wondered whether Dean would be proud or disappointed at that.

A soft, moaning sigh set Jessica at ease as she watched Sam sit up wearily, more than likely having woken up from another nightmare. She had known he had them often, but they'd picked up frequency ever since his return to his hunting ways.

"You alright?" she asked, never quite able to stop herself from being concerned over Sam. Sometimes she hated him, but deep down she knew she'd always love him.

After a moment of silence as he collected himself, he responded with a quiet affirmation.

"Good. Then you're right on schedule." As she finished up her beer and moved closer to settle herself into the bed as soon as he was out of it, she allowed herself her first grin in a very long time. She was both relieved and disappointed that it was dark enough in the room to hide it.

**To be continued . . .**


	4. Chapter 3: Soiled

Thanks to all my reviewers so far - you guys are totally awesome!

**Disclaimer: **Don't own a bunch o' stuff.

**Chapter 3** - Soiled

Dean was mostly awake before his brother said his name, the sun shining in through the small, uncovered window beckoning him to consciousness. "I'm up," he mumbled, rolling onto his stomach and making no move to rise.

He'd slept heavily, a deep, dreamless sleep reminiscent of the dead. The dead that got any rest, that was.

"Dean," Sam repeated after a few minutes, when he didn't so much as twitch any further. He was probably drifting back to sleep, a thought that both annoyed Sam – who'd only been allowed sleep for half the night and probably wouldn't have gotten any more anyway – and made him feel somewhat happy at the same time. At least one of them could still obtain a healthy amount of sleep every now and then.

"Yeah," Dean responded, sitting up slowly, but without further prodding. Jessica slept on in the bed next to his.

"I think I may have found something."

Predictably, Sam's brother was on his feet and behind him in a few short, quick movements. "What've you got?"

"I don't know for sure if it's relevant, but it's the first possibly supernatural thing we've found related to Stantonville –"

"Just spit it out, Sam."

Sam brought a window up onscreen, showing an old newspaper article from the mid-eighties. "Stantonville Man Arrested for Murder of Siblings, Sanity in Question," he read the headline aloud. Scrolling to display the bulk of the article for Dean's perusal, Sam summed up what he'd read already. "This guy, Peter Jaffords, was on a day trip with his brother and sister, staying at some motel, when he murdered them. Apparently, they found his teeth marks all over the bodies from when he'd started eating them . . . and the walls were covered with 'arcane symbols' that he'd drawn in their blood. I did a little more looking around . . ." Sam brought up a second window, similar to the first but with a different article, "and he apparently escaped after four days of police custody, during which he had no visitors other than police officers."

Sam paused to let the information sink in – and also for a little dramatic effect, if he were to admit it. "Though his cell was still locked when they found him missing, and there was no window."

"So he locked the door after he got out." Dean shrugged, a little skeptical.

"The place was heavily guarded, and no one heard anything or saw anyone come in or leave."

"Okay. Any pictures of those symbols he drew?"

"Not that I could find."

"Then I'm grabbing a shower."

"What?" Sam spun around in his chair to see his brother's retreating back. "That's it?" he hissed. "This could be important, Dean!"

Dean looked back only when he was in the bathroom with a handful of clothing and about to close the door. "Or it could be some crazy guy who got put out of his misery by a smart cop who covered his tracks, who knows? Either way, me walking around dirty all day isn't going to help a damn thing, Mr. Personal Hygiene."

* * *

"Anyone wanna clue me in on why we have to notice these things _before_ breakfast?" Dean complained, parking across the road from Stantonville's small church. 

"Because it probably happened during the night?" Jessica suggested helpfully.

"Yeah, but I haven't even had my _coffee_ yet!" Dean continued griping, even as he opened the door and lifted his grumpy self out of the car.

Sam rolled his eyes, and followed suit, hearing the door behind him open an instant before his as Jessica got out as well. The three of them strolled casually up to the scene, each likely assessing what they could see in their own silent way. Giving the building a brief look-over, Sam noticed that the cross that would usually rest atop a church's steeple was missing.

They'd followed flashing police lights to the town's church, where concerned and curious citizens milled about the parking lot, trying to catch a glimpse of what had happened, past the police officers on the scene.

Jessica stepped a little more quickly than he and Dean, moving slightly ahead of them to approach an elderly woman nearby. "What's going on?" she asked softly, and Sam was a little startled to hear the concern in her voice and see it in her face as she turned sideways, bringing her full attention to the woman. Her eyes shone with worry, eyebrows drawn together slightly, and her mouth drew down just a little. Her whole demeanor had fallen into the act with a complete ease he'd expect from someone who'd been practicing for years.

The woman sighed, wringing her hands together. "The police say it was vandals – someone smashed all the windows and . . . and . . . how could anyone _do_ this?" Hot tears slipped down her wrinkled cheeks. "It's so _awful . . ._"

Jessica took her hand and squeezed it comfortingly, even the fake words having failed her.

Dean snorted quietly, and Sam's gaze shot to him. "Great, they're gonna be hugging next, and we'll never get anything done," Dean whispered. Sam understood the problem with sticking around to offer comfort, though his older brother never ceased to amaze him with his bluntness.

Sam opted for a simple solution to that which hadn't quite become a problem yet. "Hey Jessica, could I talk to you for a second?" he asked, loudly enough that both women could hear.

"Sure," Jessica replied, giving the woman's hand a tighter, reassuring squeeze before walking away. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," Dean cut in quickly, saving Sam from having to come up with an excuse by throwing the truth at her callously. "We'd just like to actually get information while we're here, is all."

"Pardon me for being human," Jessica responded sarcastically, though her tone wasn't as acidic as it could have been, and she made no other comment on the subject. "So do you guys think this has anything to do with our 'friend'?"

Sam really had no idea, but given the low crime rate of communities this size, anything extremely violent, immoral, or in this case sacrilegious in nature might be connected to the creature they hunted. "Could be."

Jessica nodded. "What's the plan, then?"

Dean grinned at her. "Well, you _do_ seem to make a good 'damsel in distress. . . .' Doesn't she, Sammy?"

Sam mentally cringed. Too good, sometimes.

* * *

"Jesus," Dean heard Sam mutter next to him, as Jess's wails rang out somewhere outside the church. 

Dean reached up and smacked the taller man in the back of the head. "Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Sammy," he chastised.

"Sam," he corrected, "and like you don't do it every five minutes," Sam hissed back at him as they crept between pews, looking for any sign of recent demonic activity in the building. Anything other than the glass scattered everywhere, that was. It would have taken a very tall person or a long ladder to smash out the stained glass windows as someone had, clearing out every inch of even the highest of them.

"Not inside churches, I don't," Dean snapped back.

"You're never _in _any churches!"

Dean paused. He had to give his little brother that one.

"How can you tell me to calm down?" Jess's voice rose in volume briefly, and they were able to hear her as they approached the church's altar. She was outside distracting the cops, probably in fake hysterics over the atrocity of whoever would dare to desecrate a church in such a way, as those poor jerks tried to put her at ease.

It was pretty funny, actually. Not the desecration, but the hysterics.

What wasn't funny was what they found in front of them – which was a large, weather-beaten cross, inverted and protruding from the church's newly damaged altar.

In fact, it was so not funny that it struck fear in Dean's heart – this shape-shifter, this demonic _thing_ had the audacity to snap the cross from the church steeple (Sam had informed him that was likely the cross's previous location), and then to go inside the hallowed building and defile it further.

If their wounds hadn't made it apparent, this latest crime had; they were dealing with one nasty son of a bitch.

They approached the altar cautiously, climbing the single step which led up to where the altar and the overturned lectern rested.

Dean leaned over the altar slightly for a better look at the splintery cross, and frowned a little more.

"What is it?" Sam asked, noticing him do so.

Dean wrinkled his nose slightly. "It's _dusty,_" he explained, trailing his finger along the old wood. He rubbed his dirty fingers together.

"What?" Sam repeated. "That doesn't make any sense, I mean, it was just taken in from outside. Besides, the _bottom_ of the cross wouldn't be –"

"Hey! What are you two doing in here?" an angry shout sounded behind them.

Dean froze, his hand still hovering over the cross, as Sam turned to face the police officers that had discovered them. For another moment, Dean kept his back turned to them, pondering over the dust that coated his fingers. It felt wrong, somehow, less like dust than like . . . like ashes. Like the ashes that sometimes landed on his skin when salting and burning a body.

**To be continued . . .**

Drop me a line, lemme know what you think. ;)


	5. Chapter 4: Bite the Bullet

**Disclaimer: **I hereby disclaim, and proclaim myself sick of disclaiming.

**Chapter 4** - Bite the Bullet

"So, did you at least _find_ anything?" Jessica asked, irked at the morning's events so far. The way she'd grown up, it wasn't every day people narrowly avoided arrest. "I mean, did the shape-shifter do it, or what?"

"We think so," Sam replied either missing or ignoring her annoyance, "but we don't know for sure."

"Oh, great. It's a good thing we weren't almost thrown in prison for _absolutely nothing._"

"Jessica, it wouldn't have come to that," Sam said. He might have said more, but Dean spoke up then.

"Besides, they wouldn't have taken _you_ in anyway." He turned up the volume on the radio, effectively cutting off the conversation with the sounds of Motorhead. _Enough's enough, believe it's true, bite the bullet, I'm leaving you. . . ._

By the time Dean pulled the car off into the parking lot of Mom's, a small eatery, the music was a lot quieter. Jess hadn't noticed which brother had turned it down.

Sam held John Winchester's heavy and slightly dog-eared journal in his lap, open to no page which shed any light on their current hunt. "Maybe we should give Caleb a call," he suggested, staring blankly at the words in front of him as Dean turned the car off and put the music out of its quiet misery.

"Maybe," Dean responded quietly, watching the late morning traffic pass by out his window. "Or Bobby – there's probably something in his library having to do with telekinetic shape-shifters."

Sam laughed at that one. "There's probably something in Bobby's library about animals being possessed by the Looney Tunes." He continued, more than likely for Jessica's benefit, "The man barely has room for furniture among all the books he has."

"Oh," Jessica acknowledged, mostly to make some noise to thwart the awkward silence that had been threatening to settle over the car.

More awkward than normal, anyway. Usually Dean's music or the brothers' bickering filled the air. "Call him, then," Dean said, tossing his cell in Sam's direction and getting out of the car.

Jessica paused for a moment before opening her door , watching him walk away, his movements a little stiff. "I'll be there in a minute," Sam said softly to her, scrolling through the numbers on Dean's phone.

"Yeah," she murmured.

When she got inside, Dean had already taken a seat in a booth in the corner, sitting with his back to the wall and his eyes to the room. The Winchesters, as she was learning, were a paranoid bunch. It occurred to her, as she scanned the eatery and its patrons quickly and discreetly, that she was also learning to fall in with those ways.

She walked over to the booth and slid gracefully in across from him.

The waitress had come and gone with their coffee orders before either of them broke the silence in the booth.

"You look tired," Jessica spoke up.

Dean shrugged. "Just not that awake yet."

"Vandalism, sleuthing, and run-ins with cops don't wake you up?" She tapped her fingernails on the table and leaned back, looking at him expectantly.

"Guess not," was all he offered.

The waitress, a tired-looking woman of about thirty-five, set their coffees down in front of them. "You two ready to order?" she asked.

"Not quite yet," Jessica told her. She figured they might as well wait for Sam, and was surprised when Dean said nothing to contradict her. Neither his manners or his patience were legendary.

Jessica began to pour sugar and cream into her coffee as the waitress nodded and walked away. Dean merely slid his in front of himself and looked at it.

"You sure you're not coming down with something?" Jessica pressed, and Dean gave her a sardonic look – but his face _was_ pretty pale. "What? You think that because you kill the undead for a living, you're immune to the cold?"

* * *

"A shape-shifter with a _what_ around it?"

"I don't know, Bobby, maybe it was just telekinesis or something, but the bullet just stopped in midair in front of it." Sam could hear the crinkle of heavy pages as Bobby searched for information on the thing they were hunting. On his end of the line, he could hear sirens in the distance.

"So you saw it take more than one shape?"

"Yeah," Sam replied. "When we first saw it, it was just a small housecat. When it attacked, it changed itself into a nasty version of a coyote."

"And that's all you boys know?"

Sam held in a sigh. "Well, we've got a couple of uh, incidents, that might be connected, but no _concrete_ evidence to link them. . . . I found an article about a man who murdered and chewed on his brother and sister and then wrote symbols on the walls in their blood – his escape from the cops sounded a little, well, shifty to me. . . . And someone or something vandalized a church last night. They had to have been able to either climb to the top of it –"

"Or fly up there?"

"Yeah."

"I'll tell ya, Sam, it _is_ ringin' a few bells, here. Shape-shifting, killin' family members, desecratin' churches . . . it might all be important. Lemme just see if I can find it, now. . . ." Sam waited, switching the cell phone to his left ear so he could drum the fingers of his right hand on the car door.

The sirens he had heard grew louder, as an ambulance sped by his window, in the direction they had come from. "Oh, and there was something weird at the church," Sam added as an afterthought. "There was dust all over the place –"

"Dust?" Bobby repeated, and his end of the line went silent. Sam felt a twinge of dread in his stomach at the man's tone.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, "and it was really weird, because –" But Bobby cut him off again.

"Did either of you touch it?"

"What?"

"Sam, did you _touch_ the dust?"

* * *

Dean gave a frustrated growl. "Dammit Jess, it's just a headache! Now will you quit mother-henning me?" Contrary to his words, he turned sideways in his seat and put his feet up.

"If it's just a headache, then why –" But she knew why he was practically lying down over there as soon as she heard footsteps fast-approaching behind her. She glared at Dean with more venom than before as Sam approached their table. Which had only one seat left – right next to her.

It was bad enough that she and Sam were having so much trouble dealing with each other, but why in the name of Hell did Dean have to try and meddle with things too?

"Dean, I swear to God," Jess ground out between her clenched teeth. He didn't move, merely relaxed further into his seat.

But she needn't have worried about any awkwardness from close quarters with Sam. He didn't even make a move to sit down. Instead, he came to an almost screeching halt at the side of the table and said with frantic fear in his voice, "Guys, we need to get out of here, now."

"What?" Dean asked, sitting up in his seat with awkward, clumsy movements. He pressed a palm quickly to his forehead, the motion having presumably jarred his headache. He lowered his hand just as quickly as he'd brought it up, however. "Why?"

Sam looked at him gravely, and took a deep, shaky breath.

Jessica's hands clenched around her coffee mug, and she leaned forward, almost as if to hear his next words better.

The tension in the small area was palpable, as Sam struggled to find words to justify his panic.

He looked Dean in the eyes. "Because I think you're dying."

**To be continued . . .**

_So, this story is operating on two main pieces of information that I want you to assume. First, and most obviously, Jess lived, duh._

_But I thought I'd write this little note to get into the second; I've read that the creature I'm basing this fic (a little roughly) on is widely documented. I want you to pretend that it's actually really obscure - besides, every piece of info I found on it was parroted from every other piece, so can one **really** call that 'well-documented'?_

_Oh! And if any of you noticed my brief summary change . . . well, first I thought I'd fix it up to try to draw in more readers, but it didn't work and I decided the first one was better anyway. Won't happen again, sorry. :P_


	6. Chapter 5: Dust to Dust

Okay, so I've changed my summary one last time – thanks very much to the help of Ster1, who gave me plenty of needed and wanted tips and suggestions. The final summary was more of Ster's inspiration than mine.

Note of the more itty bitty kind: I had to use a small line of 'SN's in place of a page break, 'cause the little design page wouldn't let me have one. . . . Jerk. : P

**Chapter 5** - Dust to Dust

_Guys, we need to get out of here, now._

_What? Why?_

_Because I think you're dying._

Oh, well, was _that_ all?

In the silence that came over the three of them, Dean didn't know whether she heard Sam's words first, or the music playing softly on the diner's radio.

_Because I think you're dying._ His words floated about the silence, alternately drowning out the lyrics and becoming lost in them. He wondered if he was really just imagining the song.

_. . . There ain't no need for watchdogs here, to justify our ways . . . We lived our lives in manacles, the main cause of our stay . . . And exiled here from other worlds, my sentence comes too soon . . . Why should I be made to pay on the bad side of the moon? _It wasn't that much of a stretch that Dean Winchester would conjure up 70's rock music at such a moment, was it?

Dean was just glad it wasn't louder. His head was pounding enough already.

It dimly registered that someone was speaking to him, and that Sam's fear appeared to be approaching panic as he repeated his name.

Dean shook himself out of his reverie, restraining the wince that threatened to surface because of the action. "Sammy, hey – calm down," he said, gently but firmly removing his little brother's hand from the place it had found on his shoulder. "What the hell do you mean, I'm dying?"

"The dust, at the church," Sam began.

"Dude, I don't even _have_ asthma. A little dust isn't gonna kill me."

Sam produced a shaky laugh at that. "Bobby figured out what we're dealing with here, a creature from old Native American legends. A, uh, yenaldooshi, he said – the dust, Dean, it wasn't dust at all. It was corpse powder, and it's supposed to–"

"You mean I just swiped my fingers through a pile of dead guy?"

"Um," a voice cut in, "are you folks ready to order yet?" The waitress had returned, and stood to Sam's left holding a pad and pencil, with her eyebrows raised.

"I'll have bacon and scrambled eggs."

"Dean!"

"What?" Dean looked up at his emotional little brother with wide, innocent eyes. "Please?" he continued to the waitress.

A beat, in which the brothers faced off a little.

"Um, to go?"

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

A particularly rough coughing fit tore Sam's eyes immediately away from the laptop set on the small table in front of him, and to the bed where Dean lay soaked in sweat and miserable. Jessica winced in sympathy, her face pale and drawn with worry. A lock of her unkempt blond hair fell into her face as she leaned over Dean from where she sat next to him on the bed, and urged him gently to sit up.

"Come on, Dean, it's okay, you can do it," she murmured to him as he complied, muscles shaking with fatigue and strain. "Just let it out, you'll be okay," she continued, rubbing his back gently as he rode out the sickness tearing it's way through his lungs. Sam doubted Jessica really noticed the soft words she was whispering.

Dean had been alright when they'd left the diner – he'd even insisted on driving, but Sam had managed to talk him out of it, by speculating on what would happen to the Impala if Dean passed out at the wheel. The coughing and wheezing began on the drive to the motel. By the time they'd arrived, he'd become light-headed and feverish.

He'd declared that while they'd stopped him from driving, he could damn well walk on his own. Then, predictably, he'd collapsed, and they'd barely managed to get him to the bed where he now lay before the sickness had completely overtaken him.

Watching Jessica tend to Dean was a little disquieting for Sam – beyond the knot of despair and terror in his gut at seeing his brother so sick and in so much pain, it was disquieting to see the way his worlds had collided in the two of them.

Jessica, the embodiment of his ideal life and everything he'd ever dreamed of growing up, and Dean, the one thing he'd held onto the most in his twisted childhood, the person who'd always been able to make him feel safe in that life of darkness and danger. While his father was God-knows-where and had seemed to cut himself off completely from them, Sam's whole world was on that bed.

Only half of it had been disconnected from him in one sudden, terrible moment, and the other half was slipping away even as he watched. And he had no idea how to stop it.

Jessica rose slowly from the bed and moved to stand next to Sam. "Any luck?" she asked, her voice low so as not to disturbed Dean, who appeared to be falling into restless sleep.

"Not really," Sam sighed. "I mean, I've been able to find out a bit more about what this thing _is,_ but not how to kill it – everything Bobby told me, and every little thing I've managed to find says silver should kill a yenaldooshi, but _nothing_ accounts for the extra powers this particular one has."

She bit her lip and pulled the second chair next to him where she could sit and see the screen. "Well, why don't you lead me through what it is? I don't really know much about this sort of thing yet, but maybe some fresh insight might help?"

Sam ignored the small spring of hope inside himself at her use of the word 'yet' – implying some sort of permanence in her place with them, with _him_ – mostly, due to irrational anger. "I know how to research, Jessica, I've been –"

"Getting pissed off at me for no good reason sure as hell _won't_ help," she cut him off.

He glared at her for a moment – and since when could he find it in himself to actually _glare_ at her; to be _angry_ at her? He looked away from her, glancing at Dean, letting the dire situation ground him. "Alright," Sam conceded. He took a moment, scrolling through the latest web page he had open and collecting his thoughts. "As you know, a yenaldooshi is a corporeal creature that can assume animal form, more often than not but not always a coyote."

Jessica sat in silence, listening to the information he had to offer on the subject whether she already knew it or not.

"Actually, they're not technically creatures – at least they weren't always, as is often the case with . . . well, the sort of things we deal with. According to the Navajo legends, they were originally evil human beings who were able to gain power by breaking some sort of cultural 'taboo' – usually by murdering a close relative, the way Peter Jaffords did."

"Sick son of a bitch, wasn't he?" Jessica interrupted, but Sam disregarded the comment – as she might have suspected he would.

"They're said to travel through communities at night, spreading misery and mayhem, and get this: 'desecrating holy things.' Sound familiar?"

She didn't respond. They both knew it did.

"They," and here's where Sam hesitated in his spiel, "are known for their use of corpse powder, which, surprise surprise, is made from human cadavers. The powder gains power through the evil of having violated the human remains; through bringing suffering and outrage to the souls of the people used to make it – and that power manifests itself by bringing sickness or . . . or death, to those who touch it."

Jessica nodded, her eyes skimming across the screen; her face set in the stony mask which Sam couldn't quite make himself form. "Okay, so even if we don't know how to kill the demon, do we know how to counteract the corpse powder?"

_Of course we damn well don't,_ Sam thought. It seemed they never had concrete facts when they needed them the most. "Not for certain . . . but I think killing the yenaldooshi might counteract the effects."

"So . . ." she took a moment to think the theory over. "So you're saying that killing the demon –"

"Yenaldooshi," Sam corrected. Everything was a demon to her. Sometimes he felt like even _he_ was.

"You're _saying_," she continued, her tone powering through his correction, "that killing this _thing_ will avenge the creation of the corpse powder? Take away its magic?"

"Maybe – hell, maybe it won't do anything, beyond stopping the bastard from creating more! I don't _know_, Jess, but I've got to –" He stopped, looking away from her.

"You've got to what, Sam?" Her tone wasn't an angry one; she was soft and placating – she was _gentle_. The way he usually was with her, and she usually wasn't with him.

He looked back at her, and found her tone echoed in her eyes – so he decided to finally give her the truth. He decided to finally tell her who he was – the person Sam Winchester had always been no matter what he knew or who he told about it.

"I've got to hope."

A scared boy who, when he had little else, held on with an unfailing grip to what could be.

But what he couldn't express was that with every drop of sweat that rolled off of his brother's brow, his grip was slipping. "Anyway," he murmured, "I just can't figure out the telekinesis thing – I mean none of these sources even hint that a yenaldooshi would have those kinds of abilities."

Jessica's brow furrowed as she looked at him. "So, what if this one just does?" She spread her hands apart from each other, waving them slightly as if weighing out possible answers. "I really don't understand why all these things have to be _exactly_ the same."

Sam didn't roll his eyes, but he almost wanted to. He had to remind himself how little experience she had with these things. "Supernatural creatures," he explained, "They're governed by certain rules – like how a werewolf is only an animal during a full moon, and spirits are deterred by rock salt. They don't vary the way people do; there aren't exceptions to those rules, they just are."

"But Sam, you said it yourself – this thing, this _yenaldooshi_, it's an evil _human_ with supernatural powers! And if_ Matilda_," she flicked a finger around to illustrate her reference, "can make people fly around with her mind, then why can't the guy who found a way to turn into a rabid coyote be able to stop a bullet?"

Sam stared at her for a moment. He blinked. ". . . oh."

**To be continued . . .**


	7. Chapter 6: Grip

We're getting down there, folks. Only one chapter and the epilogue after this.

No page breaks yet. The perfectionist in me is irked.

**Chapter 6** - Grip

The first time, they'd been scouting the area.

Reports of violent, animalistic killings had drawn them to the town. They'd interviewed the sole survivor of a grisly bear attack, who'd tried to deflect their insistent questions with the standard, 'you'll think I'm crazy.'

It had been a bear attack, but they hadn't seen or heard it coming. There'd been a crow perched in a nearby tree, watching them; even creeping them out a little. The bear had attacked, and that one lucky member of the group had been able to hide – only to watch as it became some sort of 'demon dog,' and ate his friends.

All in all, not the most _productive_ day in the woods – but enough for this merry band of hunters.

So yes; the first time they'd been scouting the area for some sign of the creature, and where it might have gone to or come from. They'd been gathering information, armed with silver bullets.

Now, they were hunting – and their current arsenal made their previous one look like a joke.

Handguns and a load of silver bullets, knives, a crossbow and silver-tipped bolts for Jessica, a baseball bat for Sam, flasks of holy water. The two of them were going to war, and Peter Jaffords was going to go from a sick son of a bitch to a dead one.

It had been Dean who had sealed his fate, however, with a single finger trailing over dusty, weather-beaten wood.

Sam had been reluctant to leave him as they had, feverish and delirious and alone, but he'd recognized that they had no choice; that Dean's time was running out and they couldn't do anything to help him but go out and kill the source of his sickness. Having been raised by the almighty, irrepressible John Winchester, Sam wasn't afraid of much – but now he was terrified, terrified that his brother would die while he wandered the woods on a wild goose chase.

That Dean would die, and Sam would not have been at his side.

"You know what's funny?" Jessica said, stepping carefully beside him through the underbrush. "In the four years I knew you at Stanford, I never knew what to make of that look on your face."

Sam looked down at her as he swept a branch out of his way, meeting her eyes only briefly as she glanced at him again. As she continued, giving a derisive half-chuckle, he was only afforded a view of her hair, pulled back into a loose, messy ponytail. "Something as simple as worrying and brooding about your family, and I didn't know what it was."

"Jessica, this isn't really the best time to be –"

"So I should keep my head in the game, huh?" She gave him a pointed look. "Good advice."

Sam ignored the voice in his head that told him they'd both be better off right now if they shut up and paid attention – he knew he'd let Jessica get away with a whole hell of a lot considering what he'd put her through, but this one he couldn't let go. "You don't think I can pay attention when I know damn well that Dean could _die_ if I don't? You have that little faith in me?"

"Why the hell should I?" she snapped back, and this was neither the time or the place, but the conversation had been a long time in coming. "I've _put_ my faith in you, Sam, and just look where that got me!"

He opened his mouth to tell her that what had happened to her wasn't his fault, but closed it again. He sure as hell wasn't blameless, was he? Less so than she knew, because he'd _known_ what was coming, had dreamt of her bleeding and burning, and what had he done to stop it? Why _should_ she have any faith in him?

He was saved from his guilty silence by a bloodcurdling shriek, coming from his not-so-distant right. It brought him back to the present in a way that as of right now, Jessica couldn't possibly. He wielded the bat, the argument shoved and locked in a dark room in the back of his mind.

"_Faith fails only those who fail faith." _The voice that came to them was quiet and soft, but far too loud resounding inside Sam's head.

"Say that three times fast," Jessica murmured to his astonishment, appearing to be caught wholly off-guard by the invasion.

Really, it was a nifty trick to have picked up, seeing as how the fox that padded out of the darkness toward them likely did not possess the necessary skills recite sonnets. Its muzzle was wet with what was more than likely blood, and its black eyes glinted harshly in the moonlight.

While that glint spoke otherwise for the kill, Sam didn't think the repetition would actually be that difficult.

The silence of the face off – and since when did they fight silence more often than darkness? – was broken quite unexpectedly by a snap and a whistle of something moving quickly through the still air. Sam jumped slightly, and as he watched Jessica's crossbow bolt careen to the right at the last possible instant, cutting through fur but not into flesh, he realized that it could almost have been over then. And that they had a fighting chance.

Silver _could_ kill this surprised and pissed off beast; it just had to catch him off guard to do it.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

When he became aware again, the air in the room felt hot and muggy from his own fever. It hung over him like storm clouds, oppressing and too damn still.

He couldn't hear anything but the silence and his own thoughts.

"Sam?" he tried to call out, but his voice cut out halfway through the name, his throat dry, scratchy and raw. There was no answer, and when Dean tried to roll onto his side, the world tilted and swayed around him. He forced himself to complete the motion and reach shakily for the glass of lukewarm water on the night stand next to the bed.

He clutched the glass tightly and awkwardly and managed to bring it to his dry lips. Once he had drank and let the water settle, Dean sat up, and stayed up even though he felt like he might collapse. Because even sick, Dean Winchester refused to be weak and helpless.

But he couldn't help the sudden pang of loss when his little brother wasn't there to tell him to get the hell back in bed. Of course he was alone.

And yeah, Dean could take care of himself – but something was wrong, oh so very wrong, and he didn't know what it was, but he had to –

Commanding his leaden legs to support him, Dean pushed himself off of the bed, but the action was doomed to fail. As soon as he rose there came this awkward sensation of _tilting_. The puppet strings which had struggled to lift him snapped, and he spilled to the floor.

How long he lay there, he couldn't have said. Time seemed to stop until he heard the slam of a door opening, and relief washed over him where he lay paralyzed with sickness as Sam stumbled into the room. His brother collapsed near him in a mirror of his own predicament, Dean's name escaping his lips in a rasping plea, and Dean could barely comprehend the blood that splashed from his sprawling form.

His little brother lay helpless on the floor, beyond Dean's reach. But the one thing he wished for the most, instead of the ability to follow orders and save Sam, was to tune out his own father's voice – washing over him, telling him to protect his brother.

Before, after, and during everything.

He couldn't do it this time.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Briefly, Sam wondered whether or not Jessica had meant to fire her arrow, but then Jaffords perceived the threat and switched to damage mode, in more ways than one.

It – for Sam was no longer set in his ability to refer to this creature as a 'he' – meant to tear the two of them apart just like its other victims, and the form of the mountain lion gave it the means to do so. It snarled viciously and leaped at Jessica, muscles rippling with power beneath its assumed hide.

Sam was almost as quick to react as Jaffords, however, and swung his baseball bat at it in an arc that would make any father proud – especially his own. Jaffords one-upped him, transforming mid-jump into his human form to catch the bat as his feet hit the ground.

This man stood naked in front of the two hunters for the briefest of moments, displaying flesh that was discoloured and rough from either mistreatment or disuse. His muscles were fine enough, Sam discovered as Jaffords's fist plowed into his face. An instant before the blow sent Sam sprawling to the ground, he saw a flash of something gleaming white in the moonlight, some unknown talisman hanging from a rawhide strap around Jaffords's neck.

The thing, man no longer, followed Sam down, diving to avoid the blade that Jessica thrust in its direction. The small, feline paws of a rough and tumble housecat padded off of Sam's chest and took Jaffords into the lower branches of a nearby tree.

If Sam could have spoken through the pain at that moment, he'd be cursing – and with a little more time for breath he'd be wishing Dean was there to back them up.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

_Dammit Jessica, _you_ were the one who started this!_ Jess chided herself, as the scene flicked by in front of her; her own arrow, Sam falling, and the demon taking not one but three different forms from its first. It happened in such a quick succession that she found herself seeming sluggish, struggling to keep up.

And then it was gone again.

She turned to where it had leapt into the tree and seemingly vanished from her sight, knowing without thinking that its position was a more pressing concern than Sam's well-being. He'd survived far worse than being knocked off his feet by a fist.

All the same, she couldn't help glancing down at him when he cursed in pain or annoyance, and that was plenty of chance for Jaffords to get the drop on her. In one instant she couldn't see him, and in the next she could see nothing else as his weight slammed into her.

She hit the ground with a dazing thud, its claws cutting viciously into her shoulders. It's yellow coyote's eyes gleamed down on her and its foul breath washed over her face in waves.

"_You fall easily, fair maiden._"

Two hundred pounds of overgrown, ugly-ass animal was _not_ easy.

Neither was breathing, when an invisible weight was pressing mercilessly down on your throat. She reached up to claw the grip away from herself, but there was nothing around her neck to fight.

She tried to call for Sam to help her, lips moving but no sound coming out other than a horrible choking noise. She saw something move beyond Jaffords and knew he'd do _something_ – but she had hoped it would be something beyond yelping as he was tossed aside like a leaf in a gale.

The demon was still speaking as she thrashed beneath it, helpless and trapped, and the sky was darkening in time with everything else. _"A worthless kill – you're already living overtime, aren't you?"_

She should be long dead, in other words, but dammit, _she would not accept that._

Jess dimly registered demonic-animal drool dripping down her cheek with sick warmth, before she stopped acknowledging anything that wasn't rage. Her fingers hooked into claws, she reached up and put all holy hell into gouging the coyote's eyes out.

**To be continued . . .**

Btw, pardon my pun way up in the second paragraph. . . . I couldn't resist. The attack was grisly. The bear may or may not have been Grizzly. I just MAY be a dork. :D


	8. Chapter 7: Of Mice and Men

**Chapter 7** - Of Mice and Men

Groaning at the pain that lanced up and down his back, Sam realized quite quickly that he was getting sick of being thrown to the ground. This was the third time in as many nights the yenaldooshi had taken him down, and this time it had given up the pretense of actually hitting him to get it done.

Sam rolled somewhat awkwardly forward to gain his footing, and was just beginning to stumble back to where Jessica was under the yenaldooshi's attack when an unearthly scream filled his head.

It was like nails on a chalkboard, the sound and sensation resonating and grinding in his mind, and his skull seeming to vibrate with every wave of perceived sound. It was a painless agony that brought him to his knees, hands raised to his ears in a futile effort to thwart the sound.

It ended with an odd thwack of flesh on flesh and a soft grunt of surprise and pain, and Sam resumed his dash back to the scene. He pulled up next to Jessica as Peter Jaffords reared upward in his coyote form once more, to bounce his paws into her face, her neck, her shoulders, anywhere it could hit in its panicked efforts to stop her assault.

As blows went, they were clumsy awkward, still Sam was having none of it. He surged forward, leaning down to plow his shoulder into the beast and tackle it away from Jessica. He dimly registered seeing the flash of white once more, a necklace swinging wildly around the coyote's neck.

He was surprised to find himself hitting the ground on the other side of her with no coyote underneath him. Jaffords had transformed again, and in a flutter of wings and motion flew away from Sam and careened off into the trees. It clipped a branch in its retreat, lost some height and scrambled away, in as much sense of the term as a blind crow could manage.

Ignoring the lessons he'd always been taught, to never turn his back on the creatures of the night, Sam immediately turned back to where Jessica was already pushing herself to her feet. "Jess! Are you –"

"I'm alright, Sam," she interrupted, not unkindly. "Now can we concentrate on coming up with a plan?"

Fortunately, Sam was a bit ahead of her. "Did you see the necklace it had on?"

With her hand hovering next to her bleeding left cheek, Jessica paused and gave Sam a confused and incredulous look. There were _so_ many different comments that Dean should have been there to make.

"There's no time to explain," Sam huffed, "but I think it might be some kind of talisman, maybe if we –"

A roar had him clutching at his temples, and as Sam attempted to dodge the crow dive-bombing at his face, he found himself absurdly wishing that people and things would just _stop cutting him the **hell** off._ He narrowly avoided sharing Jaffords' blindness in his right eye, but had to bat the creature away as it tore furrows into his skin just below the temple and slightly into his hair.

Unable to compensate for the added speed of Sam's shove, Jaffords must have sensed his impending crash landing and transformed once more to his coyote form. The extra weight brought him quickly to the ground, stumbling on four paws to keep his balance.

"Oh, for _Christ's sake,_" Jess snapped. She yanked her gun from the waistband of her pants and opened fire.

Sam hastily backed a little further out of her way, stumbling on a protruding tree root but remaining upright. Jaffords spun around to face the source of the ear-splitting noise, even as all his fur stood on end and bullets ricocheted this way and that to miss him.

There was no roaring in their heads this time, only a low, infuriated growl of, _"Bitch, oh you little bitch –"_ He'd given up his verbal, intra-cranial imitation of regal and sophisticated in favour of a language more animalistic.

And as he charged at Jessica again, Sam watched the scene unfold in a curious brand of slow motion.

Jaffords leapt for Jessica's throat, claws extended for a deadly embrace, and at the same time, Jessica stepped sideways. She left her gun hand raised in the place she'd been a moment before and fired once more, before dropping the gun abruptly.

When Jaffords airborne body plowed into the position he'd thought she was in, he met only her hand, clawing at _his_ throat and yanking down and behind him.

Jessica grunted as his weight spun her by the arm. Then there was a dull snap, and Jaffords was gone.

For a moment, the only sounds were Sam and Jessica's laboured breathing.

Then, a squeak that would have been intense in its pain and confusion, had it not been so oddly muffled. Glancing down as Sam both felt the sound, almost soft in his head, and heard it piercing the outside air in only the most normal of ways, he understood what it meant.

Primarily, it was Jaffords' new equivalent of screaming, "WHAT?" and only slightly underneath that, it was the sound of heavy curtains falling closed after a theatrical performance.

To the outside viewer, it was simply the cry of a distressed mouse.

"_NO!"_ he felt Jaffords protest, no louder than a whisper. _"Not the mouse, I don't **need** you anymore, I don't –"_

Apparently Jess understood the situation about as well as Sam did, for she swung the necklace she held in her hand against a nearby tree, shattering the small mouse skull that hung from it and effectively cutting Jaffords off.

And then Sam strode over, stepped on the small animal's tail, and exploded it with a silver bullet.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

The car was like a foreign county without some kind of music on, and the two of them were like strangers all over again. She'd thought they'd been getting over that.

She turned her head to watch him ignore her, staring ahead through the windshield at whatever they rushed to meet. His face was uncharacteristically expressionless. Her hands were cold. She began to speak, but had to clear her throat before the words would leave it.

"Sam, I'm sorry."

Once the confession had been voiced, she was surprised at how easy it really was. If it had occurred to her to apologize to him even just a day ago, she'd have shot down the idea with vehemence. She'd thought she had no reason to be sorry.

"What for?" Sam asked, and his words were softer than she would have expected.

"Do you think it was right?" And now she found herself not quite able to look at him as she continued, feeling more guilty than she had in a long time. "That faith fails only those who fail faith?"

"Jess . . ."

"Tonight was the first time you called me that in _four months_, Sam!" The first time since that night that he'd been able to accept her as the woman she'd been, and as one who wasn't going to leave him anytime soon. "Have I hurt you that badly?" She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to keep herself together despite the questions that tore themselves from her. "Was it right?"

They drove for another few moments in silence, before his barely-voiced response. "Not always."

All this time, she thought he had betrayed her with his silence and secrecy, but which one of them had shut the door on the relationship? Which of them had cast the other out?

"Do you think we'll be okay?"

"I don't know what we'll be." And she'd thought he just wanted her back, that he'd wanted his girlfriend, and his normalcy, but maybe they _were _a little beyond that now. They'd changed, and so had what lay between them, and she didn't know how they might fit anymore. Apparently, neither did he.

"I don't know what we'll _be_," Sam repeated. "But yeah. I think we'll be okay."

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

_Well, that makes two of us,_ Sam thought, flashing back to his and Jessica's conversation in the car as he bolted to their motel room, praying for a hat trick.

He hastily unlocked the door, rushing in and crashing painfully to his knees next to where his brother lay on the floor. "Dean!" He rolled him gently and quickly onto his side.

Sam was checking Dean's pulse before it occurred to him that his brother might actually be dead, and jerked his hand away with a gasp.

"S-Sam?" Dean croaked in response, trying to lift his head to look at him.

"Ssh, it's alright, I've got you, okay?" Sam comforted. "Come on, let's get you . . ." He trailed off as Dean's hand grasped his chin weakly, turning his head to look at the blood and bruises that covered the side of Sam's face.

Sam grasped the hand and squeezed it in his own – an action he hoped Dean would be able to make fun of him for later, and repeated his reassurances that everything was alright. Then he helped his brother sit up, and supported him as best he could back to the bed.

Jessica stood a few feet behind them, watching the two of them for a moment before moving to help.

**To be concluded . . .**


	9. Epilogue: Like a Glove

**Epilogue** - Like a Glove

"From what I can figure, the mouse skull was Jaffords' power object," Sam explained, tapping his pencil idly against the pages on which he'd jotted down his gathered knowledge on the hunt. He sat at the table in the motel room, laptop open and papers strewn about, as Dean sat propped against the headboard of one bed, and Jessica sat Indian style in the middle of the other.

"Power object," Jess repeated, sounding like she cared less than a lot.

"You've probably heard stories of how skinwalkers typically wear an actual animal skin over their shoulders when in human form," Sam continued, oblivious to her apathy. Dean snorted to himself – his little brother was far too into this Professor Geek shtick – and Sam ignored that too. "Well that skin is a more common adaptation of a power object, without which the skinwalker can't transform. Jaffords must have used the mouse skull in the same way."

"Except for the part where he used it in _other_ ways," Dean corrected, adding just enough sarcasm to his tone for it to be annoying instead of just helping the explanation. The hoarseness of his voice in no way detracted from the effect.

After another worried hour or two of fever and delirium, Dean had begun to work his way back to them. It would probably take a few days of healing, but to all of their relief it seemed he'd be back to his normal, healthy and annoying self soon.

"Right," Sam agreed. He flipped to the next page of his notes for no apparent reason. He _definitely_ had this spiel pre-memorized. "Most skinwalkers use their power objects as simply a source of the magic they need to transform, but Jaffords recognized that it works both ways. The skull gave him the magic, yes, but his use and strengthening of that magic made the skull more powerful in return. Therefore it could be used to harness other kinds of magic; give him other kinds of abilities." Sam flipped his notes closed, a triumphant grin on his face.

Dean gave him a slow, sarcastic clap for his deduction skill; he was fresh out of cookies and gold stars.

Jessica chose the more mature and more effective method of bursting his bubble. "Riddle me this, Oh Wise One. Why a mouse? You know, seeing as how he obviously saw it as a great and noble creature."

What was it they'd told him it had said? 'No, not the mouse, I don't need you'? The guy had obviously never been much of a Mickey fan.

Sam flipped through his papers for a few moments before shaking his head. "I don't know."

A Dean Winchester who hadn't just come so close to death might have gloated about the fact that he thought he _did_ know; but facing his demise with no power to stop it was what had made him understand so well. "The mouse could have saved him, you know," he said softly, closing his eyes and leaning his head back to rest on the wall.

He couldn't see whether they were giving him questioning looks. He reopened his eyes at their silence to glance between them. "He could have gotten away as a mouse. You wouldn't have been able to shoot a running mouse." Mouse, mouse, mouse – the word kept repeating itself in his words, and for a moment he felt a fraction of how inescapable the creature must have been for Jaffords.

"In his final, most desperate moments, the mouse was there. That's why he chose it. Because he had no other choice."

"What do you mean?" Jess interrupted. "He could have chosen a dog, or a cat, or anything you'd find around –"

"No, he couldn't have," Dean stopped her. "They arrested him in the middle of his little ritual of the damned, and locked him in some grungy, lightless cell for _four days._ He was hanging in the limbo before he could get his powers, suspended – trapped, and desperate."

"And then he found a mouse in his cell," Sam continued, understanding.

"It found him," Dean corrected, staring blankly now into the motel's small kitchen. "And no matter what he did to overcome it, now matter how often he put his energies into being that coyote and turning it into a powerful, fugly son of a bitch, he could never escape the fact that before and after _everything_, he _needed_ that mouse. It was a scrawny, dirty, fragile thing that was probably just looking for a few crumbs to eat, but it would always be _more_ than he was."

When he'd finished his monologue, a heavy, emotionally charged silence fell in the room. No one knew quite how to respond to that.

"You know what I don't get?" Dean began again – to let them all begin again. "How did he figure out how to _do it?_ Shapeshifting for Dummies? How to Become a Yenaldooshi in Three Easy Steps?" He paused, letting Sam and Jess's quiet laughter settle over him like a warm blanket. "Wikipedia?"

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Sam stepped out the motel door, carrying his and Dean's bags out to the car – Dean had insisted he could carry his own, and his little brother had pretended not to hear him – but as Jess picked up hers to follow him, Dean's words made her pause.

"So, how does it feel to be one of us now?"

She rested her bag on the bed closest to the door and looked at him. "You mean a card-carrying member of the Winchester Pro Bono Exterminator's Club?"

Dean frowned. "Since when do we have cards?"

"And not to mention, my last name's Moore." She took a moment to really consider the question. "It's . . . kind of exhilarating, honestly. And very weird."

"Exhilarating. Yeah." Dean grinned cheekily at her. "Don't let Sam hear you say that. You know, before he went to college I never would have thought his lecturing skills could actually _improve._"

Jessica couldn't have helped the genuine smile on her face if she'd tried. Some days she had trouble understanding how the Winchesters, who had been forged in fire, could do so much more than simply burn.

Sam Winchester was her love, even when lately he wasn't at all, he was her warmth and security – and even as her storm she could see his underlying goodness, and all that he would do for her. Dean Winchester was her friend, someone who could become a brother to her, and in moments like these he was her freedom and air.

"It feels right," she admitted quietly, and underneath the amusement in Dean's gaze, she saw his understanding. Here, they could belong.

"I never did get what was so great about being normal, anyway," Dean said, nodding to the open doorway, to where Sam was mulling about, packing their belongings in the Impala.

"It's about the innocence, I guess."

Dean laughed again, bringing the conversation back to levity as he always did. "Innocence is for geeks who can't get laid, anyway."

Jess narrowed her eyes at him.

"Uh . . ." He had the grace to look mildly alarmed, before he formed air quotes with his fingers. "'Make love'?"

"You're impossible," Jess responded, throwing her hands in the air before picking up her bag and walking out into the sunlight.

Sam tossed her the keys as she approached the car, and she handed him her bag and slid into the driver's seat.

She turned to her window to wave to Dean as he did a double-take in the doorway. _That's right, Deano. Some _girl _is driving your car. _And_ she gets to pick the music._

**End.**

Here we have it, ladies and gents, the end.

Thank you's go out to Mike, for reading and reassuring and helping me work out my plot rambles. Thanks to Raven for putting up with my endless Discord-related babbling – let's just say there was a LOT – and for reading every page I threw at her even though Supernatural fan fiction is my stalker-like obsession and not hers. Thanks to Ster1 for the lovely assistance with my summary – hey, it may have come halfway through the fic, but I have you to thank for finally getting the right one.

Thanks to all my reviewers and to everybody who added _Matters of Discord_ to your alerts lists and favourites lists. You guys kept me encouraged and happy throughout the posting process. I would have still posted if it weren't for you, but it wouldn't have given me a quarter of the satisfaction. Or even an eigth. You guys are the greatest, and make it allllll worthwhile. :D

It's possible that I may continue on with the universe created for this fic in future fiction. If this makes you happy, cross your fingers for me.


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